Comments on: Teachers as Learners (Part 32)

By: Ruby

Ruby — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 03:39:19 +0000

As a matter of fact, if we recall, there are always a lot of interesting experiences which can give us some hint. One of those was a professor who announced his final exam to be a project where students do literature search on an assigned topic and make presentations in front of the class. The very first thing he said about this project was that he hoped that he could also learn something from the students’ work. I am not sure how you guys think about such an approach. I noticed two types of response, one being, “wow, this professor thinks that we can do something valuable to him. That’s very nice of him and we should do our best”; the other being, “come on, he just wants us to do some labor work for his research”.

By: Casey Schaub

Casey Schaub — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 03:22:48 +0000

I finished my undergraduate degree two and a half years ago, and I was itching to get back into the student seat ever since. I have had a passion for filmmaking since I was a junior in high school, and have taken this time off from being a student to read more than thirty books on the subject ranging from screenwriting to post-production. I did create a filmmaking club at the high school where I teach mathematics, but I have to admit that I wanted to have more hands-on experience making films. I started my master’s program in educational technology this fall due to my need to study something I am very interested in. I fell behind of the current generation of technology as soon as I left college. I knew that I needed better structure to focus my learning of these technology tools. I am learning to use these tools in an educational manner, but am interested in learning these tools just to provide myself with new knowledge.

By: mcmicha7

mcmicha7 — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 01:48:17 +0000

If there was one part of your personal learning practice that you wanted to focus on today, what would it be? What questions would you seek to answer?

I would like to find a way to motivate my fellow faculty members to increase their use of technologies in the classroom. We have many great resources at school and there is appears to be a disconnect with some of the “dinosaurs.” I have been able to reach out to an individual few which I am thankful, but I was wondering if anyone has had success in reaching out to an entire faculty all at once. Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

By: Malini Murali

Malini Murali — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 12:04:25 +0000

Teachers have to constantly update themselves with the latest technolgy tools in teaching to be dynamic in the profession. So teachers are always learners

By: Batool

Batool — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 08:37:46 +0000

Teachers have to have the talent of giving and accepting critisism (within limits) to upgrade themselves, also to accept the fact they can be learners regardless age & time.

By: Chad

Chad — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 16:51:05 +0000

I think you what we run into as technology leaders is the same frustration that is faced by immigrants working hard to assimilate to a new culture. Tech natives have no problem integrating the various technologies, because they do so throughout their life. Tech immigrants are working hard to integrate technology into one part of their life (the professional part). It’s the same struggle that eludes teachers of English as a second language, attempting to help students assimilate to language and culture at school, only to have the student (and often family) revert to their comfort at home. I think both are only evidence of human nature to feel secure. It’s a tough hurdle, because it goes against natural instinct.

By: Sahar

Sahar — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 09:34:17 +0000

Teachers should always try to look for the best in their teaching and this doesn’t occur if they don’t keep up learning. Because to be a good educator you should be a good learner.

By: Brian

Brian — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 01:02:50 +0000

I certainly agree with LaWanda. I am also a practicing teacher pursuing my masters degree. I feel similarly in that the technology knowledge I gain is required by my classes to be put forth into the classroom. The arenas that teachers learn technology are tied to its implementation in the classroom. An teachers classes are typically are education classes with the intention of utilizing the content to improve student learning. If an educator is at a conference the same is true.

I am a strong believer that technology should be used to stimulate the mind of the educator for several reasons. First, it is always good to have a reminder that learning is exciting and worthwhile. Additionally, if educators took the time to be more “selfish” and explore their own interests, teachers would have the opportunity to gain a deeper understanding and learn more about the subjects that they are teaching.

I would like to say that teachers professionally developing on their own will be a coming trend in the future. Unfortunately, with the stringent certificate renewal requirements and the pay scale structure increase for a masters, I feel that teachers will solely focus on learning related to the classroom.

By: Janice Smith

Janice Smith — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 21:34:47 +0000

Will-

I continue to enjoy reading your blog on almost a daily basis, despite having left the classroom a year and a half ago. It is because of your blog that I continue to remain engaged in educational technology, and continue to think about a future in schools doing this kind of work.

As a result, when I was awarded the Kreativ Blogger this morning and asked to award 7 other blogs, I couldn’t help but pass one along to you. You can check it out here (along with your shout out), http://rateyourworld.wordpress.com/ , and know that I appreciate all that you do!

Janice

By: Beth Cullinan

Beth Cullinan — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 22:34:06 +0000

As a middle school global cultures teacher (and in a social studies frame of mind), I think it comes down to a “primary needs” theory; true, we aren’t talking about physical survival here, but I do think many teachers are in perpetual “survive or die” mode in the classroom. It’s a sprint from the first bell to the last bus, full of short-hand conversations with colleagues about logistics (rather than philosophy), shoveled-down lunches, parent emails, last-minute have-to’s from stressed-out administrators…and self-imposed pressure to be uber-educators (and don’t forget raising those test scores.) My point is this: I’m a better teacher when I’m a better learner. Right now, I teach amazing students and work with a “dream team” of colleagues–we do take time to help each other focus on our own personal renewal, which, I think, leads to professional revival. There’s a reason that flight attendants ask us to put our own oxygen masks on before we help others…

By: hybridclassroom.com » Zero-Sum

hybridclassroom.com » Zero-Sum — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 21:45:46 +0000

[...] Just a quick follow-up to this post: Will Richardson over at Weblogg-ed laments that many teachers have difficulty in being “selfish”: taking time from the day [...]

By: Dylan Hartwell

Dylan Hartwell — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 12:49:50 +0000

Whenever my students ask me why I became a teacher, I always use my “selfish” answer first: Because I like to learn and teaching gives me that opportunity every day.

Advances in technology greatly facilitate this. When giving a presentation on “Teacher Application of Google Tools” (see http://www.hartwelleducation.blogspot.com) I always came back to my interests and passions to drive the presentation and demonstrate the potential efficacy of a PLN.

By: Steve Ransom

Steve Ransom — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:51:39 +0000

Shelly, that is so true. I always try to do this with my own grad students – find personal/professional value in the tool before thinking about its implications for classroom teaching and student learning. There is no way that we can force passion or convince people to be passionate about ___________ if they don’t see any relevance or personal application in it. This is true for our students just as much as it it true for us. If we all taught our own students in the manner that most sit ‘n git professional development is delivered to teachers, we’d need NTLB instead of NCLB (although, one might argue that this is the reason that we have NCLB

By: Shelly Blake-Plock

Shelly Blake-Plock — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:41:12 +0000

Maybe the best way to teach teachers both ‘how’ to use the tools and ‘how’ to use the tools to foster learning is to remove the tools from a discussion of education.

I recently led a group of young teachers through a ten week social tech in ed class. In the beginning, I was ‘teaching’ a lot of tools (to mixed results). Later in the course, I brought in pieces of poetry and rather than teach an ‘ed school’ class, I taught a ‘poetry class’. But it was a poetry class taught using and modeling the tools that I wanted the teachers to understand how to use themselves. And that’s when I started to see a connection with some folks who had otherwise been wary of social tech.

Most of us realize that the ‘ed speak’ part of professional development is mind-numbingly boring. And it’s not like teachers haven’t sat through a million prof dev sessions ostensibly ‘teaching’ them new tools.

The trick in teaching teachers how to ‘own’ their own learning through building a PLN and the like is to teach them that social media is not some monolithic thing. It’s not a set of rules meant to be followed.

In addition, there is nothing about the ‘tools’ that suggests that the only way to learn how to use them in the classroom or for the purpose of building a PLN is by treating them in a ‘prof dev’ way.

So why not teach the value of the tools by letting folks experiment with them and find their own value in using them. Interested in fishing? Great, here’s some ways to use Web 2.0 to become a better angler. Like baseball? Cooking? Historical Re-enactments? Here’s how you can use Twitter and FB and everything else to dive deeper into your passion.

Once you’ve got them hooked on the value of the tool, then you can teach them how to apply it to the classroom.

You want teachers to ‘own’ the learning? (Which is what I think you mean by being ‘selfish’). Well, let them use the tools to learn things they are passionate about outside of the classroom. Because I think the most important thing is that they learn how to ‘own’ the ‘ways of learning’ that the new tech — and networked thinking in general — offers.

Shelly

By: Where did all the PLNing go???? « Beth Holland

Where did all the PLNing go???? « Beth Holland — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 12:01:55 +0000

[...] Will Richardson’s recent post, Teachers as Learners (Part 32), he talks about why teachers need to “see themselves as learners, too.” The ultimate [...]